As the
free ebook promotion runs its course and the hours to its going out of print tick away—we’re now at T-minus 60 hours and counting—another pair of questions about
STUPEFYING STORIES #21 have come up again. Why is it available only on Kindle? Why isn’t there a print edition?
The answer, unfortunately, is pretty simple and stupid. SS#21 was the first book we did using the then-new Kindle Create software. I chose that application because a.) it promised seamless integration with Amazon’s KDP publishing platform, b.) it promised a much easier path to producing print editions by using common source files, c.) at the time, putting the e-book exclusively on Kindle offered a lot of advantages for promoting and marketing the book, and d.) our previous experience with non-Kindle platforms was really frustrating.
To be blunt, it was a lot of work to produce and deliver different output files for Nook, iPad, etc., and that extra work did not pay off. At the end of the day, the reality remained that a great month’s sales on all the other platforms combined was a slow day’s sales on Kindle.
So I produced SS#21 using Kindle Create, and found that while a.) above was true, b.) had some major bite-your-head-off bugs. So the answer to the second question is that we did produce a print edition, but it looked like total crap, so we didn’t release it. Instead we put it aside, with the intention of getting back to it and fixing it “later.”
And then the cascade of catastrophes that was the end of 2018 and nearly all of 2019 happened, and fixing SS#21 dropped off my radar.
It’s a shame that it did, because if I’d been paying attention to SS#21, I’d have noticed this reader review, which I am going to steal and reprint in its entirety, with a few things emphasized.
Hamilcar Barca
4.0 out of 5 stars
“It’s like Waiting For Godot but with supply airplanes.”
Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2019
Verified Purchase
Stupefying Stories 21 is comprised of nine tales, each by a different
author, all of approximately equal length, being about 20 pages apiece.
It is an incredibly fast and easy read, so if you have a book report
due tomorrow and haven’t even started to read anything, this is the one
to choose. You can easily finish it in a single sitting, although I
preferred to savor it by reading it one story per sitting.
All
of the tales are well-structured and well-written. I was pleasantly
surprised that none of the writers were "weak links", nor did any of the
stories feel like they were "mailed in". Perhaps that merits a
tip-of-the-hat to the editor, either for his selection of the writers or
for demanding a certain level of quality in the entries.
Only
one of the stories is in the first-person POV (My Disrupted Pony).
There is just a smidgen of cussing, and I only recall one
roll-in-the-hay. I liked the concept of a reverse camera, and enjoyed
being introduced to Lok’tus and Chickenpeckers. Ditto for the music
nods to Jim Morrison, Bruce Springsteen, and Beethoven’s 'Fur Elise'.
They all resonated with me; and anytime you mention Jackson Pollock or
throw in a bit of French, you've got me hooked. Finally, I hadn’t
thought about the (now defunct) DEW Line in ages; thanks for reviving
that bit of nostalgia.
I’m a bit leery of mentioning my
personal favorites from any anthology book, because everyone’s literary
tastes are different. Nevertheless, here are the ones that stuck out in
my mind, in no particular order.
'The Phoenix of Christ Church'. Because I'm partial to time-travel stories.
'Tendrils Beneath The Skin' and 'Wayfaring Stranger'. Because both stories ask tough, situational-ethics-type questions.
'The Crippled Sucker'. Because there are very few writers who can
make playing poker on a train into a fascinating story, and that was the
case here.
Your faves will almost certainly be different from
mine. Another reviewer here at Amazon cited 'My Disrupted Pony' as a
stand-out story, and I certainly can’t disagree with that choice, or any
other selection.
4+ Stars. I can’t think of anything to
quibble about in Stupefying Stories 21, except for: at only 9 stories
and 213 total pages, it was over far too quickly. Another half-dozen
tales would’ve been nice. Then again, if that means adding a bunch of
short stories that don’t measure up to these 9 in quality, I’d probably
be griping about that. We readers are a picky lot.
Why, warms my cold and leathery publisher’s heart, that review does. A pity I didn’t read it until this week. It also raises some points that are very germane to our plans for 2022, but that’s a topic I’ll begin talking about next week. For now…
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